helen sill @mycathasniceboots

Oct 1, 2014Oct 1, 2014

One week and counting

Still can’t get my WordPress site to work properly. But I am learning to work round things and reading loads of messages from bloggers with the same issue. Do not update to iOS 8! It stuffs your word press site up! Not great when your trying to blog about an up and coming show.

Finally managed to get technology sorted for my exhibition, got hold of an av thingumy to link to my monitor but after talking to Bob the technician at Chichester I have decided to use my trusty laptop to display ‘Do It Again Please’ to the world. Have downloaded on to the hard drive and am ready to go. Decided to add a few more ladies to textile books and am good to go for the Knit and Stitch. You can really see why I am a textile artist can’t you. But everyone needs to start some where.

Great talk at uni today from Ruth Jarman who was very tech savvy. With her partner Jo Gerhardt they exhibit as Semiconductor. Check out website. Fascinating stuff! I really loved. Great to know the story behind the art. They use computers as a medium so I am sure they would have found my forays with laptops and av thingumyies amusing . As a departure from what they normally do they are just finishing a commission in conjunction with Jerwood and are installing a huge wooden sculpture in Alice Holt park later this month. It looks great. I will be going for a butchers!

Talking of which, went to Andrew Sabin’s open studios on Sunday. Love ‘of sea and sun’ and all the sculptures which were textiley and touchable and moved. Fantastic space though we didn’t stay long as it was quite a family affair. Must be one of the only arty places I could take Nathan and let him push the art work.Memories of an an incident in the the Ashmoleum still bring me out in a cold sweat!

Right this is the downside to WordPress as it is with iOS 8 glitches, unless you insert the pictures as you go, in the app and not via safari cos it doesn’t work anymore, they all end up in a bunch at the end. Sorry. Must go, just had pop up from Apple saying I need to install the next update of iOS 8 which should include bug fixes. Just need to work out how to do it though a pc on iTunes. I could be a while…but I do sound quite techy don’t I?

<img src="https://helensill.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/

Sep 23, 2014

…It appears yes, however

This was so long-winded that I doubt I will ever be able to do again! But I did do it!

Sep 23, 2014Sep 23, 2014

Are you receiving me?

Have absolutely no idea how I’ve done this but have gone into WordPress another way and I appear to have uploaded some new pictures! Hooray! And now for the tricky bit can I do it again?

Sep 23, 2014

The artist formerly known as Dowdeswell…

Just make things clear to my many, many followers out there I have two names. I have the one that I was born with Helen Amanda Sill, and boy did I hate that when I was little, evidently everyone is the hospital ward was Helen Louise …shall we do a straw poll of all those 37 year old Helens out there…are you all called Louise or what?

Anyway I digress, and the one I signed up to accidentally by ticking the wrong box on my marriage certificate, which incidentally I am very happy with but you know, I didn’t really think about it and was suffering from baby brain at the time. So I use the Sill one when exhibiting cos that’s me and I am my art and the Dowdeswell one is for everything else. I bet Grayson doesn’t have these problems when he turns up as Clare. Anyway I’m sure you are all, the many,many of you, absolutely so pleased that I shared, and I’m off , here’s some more nice pictures to look at…… Knit & Stitch here I come ready or not….been creating and drawing in an attempt to have a few things to sell try to help fund my trips around the country and overseas….

I give up! Still can’t download any new pictures! Total pain! You’ll just have to come to my show to see everything I have been doing! Aargh technology! Give me a sewing machine any day! Here’s some old pictures to keep you happy!

Sep 23, 2014

Help trying to upload images and it’s all going horribly wrong!

Just updated my iPad to IOS 8 and can’t upload any pictures😁. For an art blog this is not good!

panic over …after spending two hours on the phone to a lovely lady in America I think I am back on line! Well it appears I can post but no photos….plan b?

Sep 16, 2014

Just a quickie…or where are my glasses…

Just been sent this to advertise the knit and stitch if you can read it you’re a better woman than me. Just spent half an hour trying to play with the image to increase it. Where’s a teenager when you need one! Made my own poster( see above)..much quicker to do and really easy to read.. You like? Perhaps a bit amateurish but with a little work?????

Madly making to do lists to get ready for shows and trying to fit in uni and teaching. Flipping technology glitches not all helpful. I need a bernina moment….painted some bits of wood to try to calm myself…what do you think Abi? Are you following my blog yet?

Phyllida Barlow eat your heart out! Can you guess what they are? Answers on a post card please….look out for them on my stand at

2014

Sep 10, 2014

You’re never too old to learn

Just found out at the age of 37 and three quarters and a big bit ….( if your going to fib make it a good one) that I am hyper mobile. Also, I do not, I was told 12 years ago have foot drop, my peroneus longus muscle does not work which is why I fall over all the time. Strangely, since I have found out exactly why I fall over, I haven’t fallen over once……funny that.

So it’s all about change!!!! And talking of change, I have just joined the third year of the Fine Art Degree at Chichester University. My first two days have been great. The journey there on Monday was quite daunting. Lots of questions and conversations going on in my head. I really want to grab this opportunity with both hands and grow my work. Scary stuff! But change is always scary.

Apols for underlining don’t know how I did that!

I get my own studio space and everything…. today I hung ‘ eye on the ball ‘ A rather small piece of work on a rather large bit of wall……..to try to motivate me. The idea being that someone is looking at me so I’d better get a move on!

Still spending lots of time sorting out what I need to make, mainly to sell. Will give all the details in next blog! Am including this featured piece ( not quite sure how I did that either). Rather a lot has happened today and it seemed to be apt. It will be for sale at the Knitting and Stitching Show along with all my other worldly goods and chattels if I am ever going to cover my flights, petrol and accommodation costs!

Finally…..just got results from Winchester and I got a distinction. To say that I am really rather pleased about that is a bit of an understatement. ‘Nuff said.

Aug 27, 2014

Books are art…

Just finished Caitlin Moran’s How to Build a Girl. All the things I love in a book…great story,, great music and book references and a bit of rude stuff and funny. Well actually not just finished reading, there’s about a 5 day delay on my blog due to lack of internet at home…currently exploring wifi hotspots of east hants…Going to create a box especially for Caitlin.

Please god let the builders hurry up and finish so I can get my Bernina out! However running water in the kitchen would be good for the time being.

ps thinking about how to make my ladies on a bigger scale

pps thinking about making more boxes devoted to books (think Olympia du Tan)

ppps note to Sue…have made a time line!

Aug 26, 2014

Blog withdrawal

Sorry about this! Getting blog withdrawal! My partner decided to have a row with BT before we left for holidays consequently we have no internet and no phone and no on demand(!) and I keep writing little blogs in my head which I can’t send. This is as well as no heating and water at home but that’s just a by the by. Just at my friend Rebecca’s trying to get blogs up to date. Been continuing to stitch little books and write in them in English and bad French ….they are also morphing into little pictures in themselves. Also I realise I really miss my ladies so when we get anywhere close to having an available electricity point and a table in my kitchen/studio am going to get my trusty bernina out and try to add them and see what happens.

Here’s what they look like at the mo

Watch this space to see how they develop……

Aug 26, 2014

Qel domage!

Arrived home from France to good news and bad news. Good news was letter from Twisted Thread confirming my exhibition offer bad news was the builders had piled loads of stuff on top of my boxes that were supposed to be going into the PACs exhibition so my neighbour couldn’t find them and they didn’t get entered! Here’s what they would have looked like….. C’est la vie as they say in Brittany! Good news was I got a Highly Commended for one of my tryptich pictures and I sold one too! So really pleased about that!

Spent Sunday haring around Hampshire and the New Forest visiting open studios. Saw Susan Chapman and Lynn Onions exhibiting in the beautiful Granary in Owlsbury ….can’t say anything more than scrumptious textiles….and then went on to Christine Watkins amazing house in Romsey! A 3 floor ordinary house which once you are through the gateway you realise is far from ordinary! An amazing eclectic mix of artists exhibits on display….from a mini Stonehenge in the garden to Westwood style pottery shoes to beautiful quilts and a range of gorgeous up cycled everything! Gutted I couldn’t stay longer but I was then off to the New Forest to the Coach House Studio to see Sarah Waters, Wendy De Salis, Andrea Finn , Dawn Gear and Sarah Orchard 5 diverse New Forest artists…more beautiful stuff to see. What’s even better is because I was skint Sarah stood me tea and cake and we babbled lots about what to do next! Sorry no photos… I am rubbish but check out their websites!

ps I really need you to know that my bad French is intentional!